


It's Bad Enough We Get Along

by Febricant



Series: Informed Mistakes [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, TW: Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:28:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Febricant/pseuds/Febricant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why won’t you stop <i>pushing</i>?” Chris demands, chest almost flush with his.</p>
<p>“A fatal flaw in my character,” Peter forces out, reveling in the harsh pull of breath past Chris' grip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Bad Enough We Get Along

Derek can’t look him in the eye.

It’s not entirely surprising, given the circumstances of his resurrection; the borrowed power Peter still has a loose grip on is slowly leaching back into him, tainted by murder. The line of succession is violently convoluted enough that it probably tastes of ash. Peter’s not happy exactly, to feel it slipping through his fingers, but to keep more than the last breath of his niece seems like too great a blow.

Peter knows that he’ll never be forgiven for taking Laura.

It’s a price he’s willing to pay, for life. For _retribution_.

Derek will probably never understand, too black and white in his loyalties, too young and under formed and wrong-footed in his position.

Peter understands, but understanding has never been sympathy.

Fine lines, and all that.

-

“You’re rebuilding.”

It’s still a novelty to spend time doing mundane things, even months after slipping a harsher bridle onto his sanity. He inhales sharply over the smell of gasoline and turns, setting the pump handle back gently.

Chris Argent stands behind him, own obnoxious truck one space over.

“It seemed a shame to waste valuable land,” he says, head cocked slightly.

“Your idea?” says Argent, accusation coloring his tone. Peter feels the tilt of his own lips, slides them into a twist instead.

“I’m not the Alpha,” he tells him, little well of power stirring restlessly.

“You should be,” Argent bites out.

“I’m insane, remember?” He slides his credit card into the slot and keys in the numbers, reclaiming it after the machine gives a happy beep.

Chris Argent looks livid, eyebrows drawn down over his tired blue eyes, sunken and dark-circled. “I know you’re the power behind the throne,” he forces out.

Peter looks him over, takes in his rumpled clothes and gray hair. If there was clearer air there might be a scent of old blood, but Peter’s trying hard not to imagine things that aren’t there.

“I’m just re-filling my tank,” he tells him, screwing the cap back into his car.

“So you’re staying, then.” It’s not really a question.

“You know,” he says conversationally, “that’s the funny thing about packs.” Argent flinches. “Blood binds.”

Derek’s still got Peter’s blood on his hands, just like Peter has Laura’s.

He waves at Chris from his car, driving away. He can’t help but notice that the Argents haven’t left town either.

-

Isaac has a knack for healing. It’s not a skill Peter possesses, nor anyone else in their nascent pack, but it’s valuable and must be explored.

“You have to send him to Oregon,” he tells Derek, waiting to be shot down. “They can teach him.”

“He’s too young,” Derek says, eyes very distant. “Deaton can teach him here.”

“Deaton’s not our kind,” Peter reminds him, coaxing gently.

Neither of them speak their minds: Peter’s brother could have taught him. It’s less a sharp stab of pain as it is a swirling miasma of rage, still. It colors his thoughts in ways he doesn’t necessarily want to be subject to but will never, ever let go of.

Derek’s grief is so ever-present across the pack bond that the children probably don’t even realize how heavy it is, how large a burden he’s placed on them, however accidentally.

“I’ll think about it,” Derek concedes.

Progress.

-

His own skills have always been subtlety, pragmatism, speed. He shifts as fully down as he can, diminished still from years of forced inactivity, trapped in a mutilated body that refused to fulfill even his most basic demands.

He pulls himself away from the pack-sense slowly, masking himself until his awareness of Derek is a pinprick in the distance, the other betas circling and bright and young.

There are generations of Hale graves in the forest. Derek never goes, but Peter curls up near them and lets anger take him, lies motionless while rage and violence crash over him in a wave.

The full shift is still loss of thought for him, catatonia and smoke-scent and helpless reaching hands.

Time passes and he rolls to his feet, spent and restless, half-human mouth stretched wide over his fangs.  
   
There’s power in it, strength even.

_Control_  is what keeps him dangerous.

-

Derek visits Kate’s grave. It’s something he’d probably want to sink his claws into Peter for knowing, but he hasn’t made plans to use it against him, yet.

“She doesn’t have answers,” he tells him, scent of death clinging to them both.

“Neither do _your_  demons,” Derek snaps, eyes flashing red.

_Demons_ , Peter thinks, parsing out Derek’s tone for his terminology.

Progress.

-

“I owe you an apology,” he tells Melissa McCall, waiting for her outside the hospital, something raw inside him preventing him from going inside. The smell is making him nauseous, hands cramping trying to keep his skin closed over his claws.

“I’m not hearing ‘sorry’ anywhere in there,” she says, heart racing, feet planted solidly anyway. She really is beautiful, even after a night shift, even with stale antiseptic clinging to her scrubs.

“I’m working on it,” he says, smiling.

“Good luck with that,” Melissa snaps, afraid and hostile and braver than she has any right to be, given what he is. Given what she knows about him.

She brushes past him, fumbling for her keys. He leaves her to it, satisfied.

-

Chris Argent should know better than to trespass on Hale property.

Derek’s claws shoot out as soon he catches the scent. Peter could have warned him, but this is more informative. _Still so rash_ , he thinks, watching Derek bristle.

“Let me handle it?” he asks, leaning forward in the armchair and snapping his book closed.

Derek growls, makes a visible effort to pull himself back into his human body and nods, jerking his head towards the door. Peter can feel him taking deep breaths, can feel him sending out _calm_  to the other betas. Peter narrows his focus.

The door closes behind him with a bang.

“Where’s Derek?” Argent demands without preamble, without any pretense at diplomacy. Peter could sigh, if he was feeling demonstrative.

“He’s learning to delegate,” Peter says.

Argent looks livid, lines in his face deepening.

“I want a truce,” he says at last.

“We have a truce,” he reminds him, watching him with senses open like he was taught, many years ago. Chris Argent has a strong heartbeat, deep lungs. He’s a mess, emotions sliding off him in waves.

“I want it in writing.”

_Oh._

“Invoking a contract is a more complicated business,” Peter says, telling him what he must already know. The Argents are a clan not without history, however human. The age of their traditions also carries weight.

“Don’t pander to me,” Argent says, voice low in his throat.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Peter hedges, voice light.

Peter never dreams of anything but fire and mouthfuls of dirt.

-

Two Hales. They’re all that’s left of an extended family that stretched across the territory peacefully; all that’s left of generations of history.

Two Argents. Peter was taught to see patterns, has a talent for figures, for information, for looking under the surface. There’s a good deal of blood pooling between their two dead dynasties. It was bound to blend someday.

Father and daughter are facing him across the clearing, identical expressions of forced calm masking their tension. Their newest disciple stands with her arms folded, face a picture of cold disinterest.

Allison, Argent matriarch, leader of two, can’t keep her mask on long enough not to shoot a poisonous, betrayed glare at Derek. She’ll learn, eventually. Next to her, Lydia Martin rolls her eyes, examining her fingernails.

Peter would be lying of he said he was surprised at the side she’s taken, bright and devious as she is. She’ll be dangerous, one day.

Derek carries enough bone-deep hurt without the added barb of Lydia’s presence, but it’s not Peter’s job to comfort him. Derek is vibrating next to him, livid and controlled in equal measure.

The contract is signed, names standing out red against the paper, hands meeting.

_So long as no violence is done to innocents in this territory, no violence shall be done against either signatory clan._

There’s fine print, of course, but the fact remains.

Peter himself can feel no joy in it, but then, joy’s never really been his stock in trade. Chris Argent nods in grim satisfaction, unarmed and human and bound. Derek turns his back first, leaving the circle. Peter feels himself pulled by protocol to follow, as if saving face was important now. He rolls his eyes at his nephew, but waits to speak until they’ve run.

“That was a good move,” he says, steps of the house coming into view as they slow down.

“They’ll never keep to it,” Derek says, voice colored with conviction.

“This generation will,” Peter tells him, going back over the signing in minute detail.

“And the next one? The one after that?” Derek’s mocking him, voice sharp and brittle. Peter’s coming to realize he may never be fully formed as an Alpha, his own foundation built on entirely too much sand to be the support for an entire pack of bitten betas.

“Are you planning on breeding any more Hales, Derek? Because I have to tell you, it doesn’t look like the next generation is going to be a problem from where I’m standing.”

Derek reels. It may have been cruel, but he’s sick of Derek ignoring vital information, of him missing things that glare like beacons to Peter.

“No,” Derek says, slow and drawn out.

“I’ve already lost enough children,” Peter tells him shortly, shifting down and disappearing, forcing his pack to the back of his mind for long enough that he can slip away without interruption.

-

Stiles never knocks, even after the house takes shape again, even after Derek’s repeated warnings. Scott is still so resolutely attached to his humanity, to the possibility of Allison and the normal  life he’ll never have that he still balks at calling himself pack, but Stiles has taken to raiding their fridge and slowly-growing library in equal measure without stopping to consider the ramifications of his support.

His mouth is full when Peter surprises him, although he manages not to choke.

“That’s always going to freak me out,” Stiles mutters with an air of resignation, spine taking on the touch of rigidity that melts around Derek but freezes his movements around Peter, body stiff and wary.

“Derek’s started keeping potato chips over there,” he says, pointing at the cupboard over Stiles’ head.

“He hates those,” Stiles tells him, as if he didn’t already know.

“You don’t,” Peter says, waiting for him to turn. Stiles doesn’t, crossing his arms instead.

He would have been a valuable asset, this one.

Still, to decline the bite takes a kind of strength that Peter can respect, even if he doesn’t understand it. It would be untoward, he thinks, to offer a gift once rejected again.

Peter casts out his focus, widening his area of awareness until he finds who he’s looking for.

“He’s gone up the hill if you’re looking for him,” he informs Stiles.

“Not going to tell me to get out?”

“That would be rude,” Peter tells him, showing him his back.

-

Werewolves heal faster.

It’s a fact of his life that his body will regenerate, given enough time and power.

The mind? The mind holds scars.

Peter spends the Wolf Moon with what remains of the pack: Derek and himself. Erica and Boyd have elected to go with Isaac to Oregon; Peter quietly pushed for them to stay, but Derek still won’t admit to how deep their headlong rush has cut, even months later. Peter doesn’t blame them in the slightest for seeking a stronger pack; it’s what he would have done, had he been in their position.

Scott is still hostile, balking at spending his time with them. He’d be a fool to behave otherwise, and while he may have blinding flashes of incredible stupidity, he isn’t _foolish_.

The Wolf Moon signals the new year. Regeneration. Rebirth. Derek looks at him sideways and doesn’t say anything, leads them on a long hunt instead until they’re both panting with exertion and thin winter air.

It used to be raucous. There used to be petty arguments and settled grievances and unsubtle teasing. This year they’re mourning a death. Peter feels it abstractly, like the ache from a long-pulled tooth. He’s counting it an unlooked-for advantage. Somebody has to keep a clear head. They hunt until his mouth is sweet with blood like it hasn’t been for months.

When they get back in the first rays of daylight there’s a stag on the porch, arrow still in its heart.

-

“I got your message.”

Chris Argent turns on his heel with professional grace. Peter can and does appreciate competence, even in opponents.

“I didn’t leave one,” he says, throwing a bag of carrots into his shopping cart with unnecessary force.

“That’s funny, I didn’t think deer were your usual quarry,” he says mildly, turning an apple over in his fingers. “Naturally, I assumed you were making a point.”

“That wasn’t me,” he insists.

Well. Peter will have to get used to thinking of Argents as plural again, instead of one.

“She needs to work on her subtlety,” Peter tells him, pocketing a pear with a tiny flourish and walking away. He listens to Argent’s heartbeat intensify as he leaves without paying, smile creeping up on him almost by accident.

-

Stiles is in the chair Peter has come to think of as his, a huge, misshapen leather wingback with enough room for two skinny teens or one large man. There are books spreading around him in piles, organized according to some strange pattern in his mind.

He doesn’t notice Peter come in, so he takes the chance to watch him, to take in the intense focus coupled with the never-still limbs, fingers, lips.

Stiles is so absorbed in whatever he’s reading that it takes him a moment to register Peter sitting down across from him, pen falling from his mouth with perfect comedic timing.

“Creeping must run in the family,” Stiles says, reclaiming it and sticking it behind his ear.

“You made a mistake, not taking the bite,” he says, steepling his fingers under his chin. Stiles lifts an eyebrow at him, stark on his gaunt face. He’s not a child anymore, grown up a little prematurely for a human, but it can’t be helped.

“Maybe,” Stiles allows, “but if you think I’d ever willingly let you bite me you’re crazier than I thought.”

Peter smiles at him, silent.

-

Derek doesn’t sleep.

Strictly speaking he _does_ , but not in the traditional sense. He wakes up and walks around in the night, puts on a pot of coffee and sits motionless in the living room, lies outside on the back porch until dawn.

Derek sleeps abruptly in fits and starts, the way he speaks, the way he moves.

Peter spent years buried under a blanket of drugs; catatonia or a healing trance, he’s still not sure which, although human medicine has applied its labels. The problem now is that he’s spent years resting, _waiting_ , feeling a cresting wave of rage pushing him closer to consciousness and having finally soaked himself in enough blood to briefly slake his thirst, he’s _hungry_  again.

He’s aware of how little of Peter Hale, brother, husband, uncle is left. The thing about fire is that it may destroy, but there’s often more than just ash in its wake. Perhaps it’s arrogant of him to see them as redwood trees, the last ones standing after the flames have cleared everything around them, but there _is_  life after survival.

Abstractly he knows that the man he was before the fire would have been horrified by the thought, but the only things left of _him_  are soot-black and colored by anger; Peter is as he is and no amount of hindsight will alter it.

Peter has no particular qualms about using the resources at his disposal, and if pragmatism is the result of evil, then he has known a lot of evil people.

It makes it both harder and easier to watch Derek watch him, as if he’s waiting for the old Peter to come back, as if he’ll wake up one day and Peter will give him reassurance that everything is going to be fine, that he’ll take care of the paperwork.

It does go both ways.

Peter remembers a quiet, studious child with gangly limbs and a wicked, cutting sense of humor. Peter sees a quiet, angry man whose anchor is his past, not his rage. Peter doubts he can separate them, at this stage. Derek has never confessed what Peter knows, that he blames himself for the fire.

Peter is prepared to hear it, to hear Derek pour out his own self-loathing in the hope that Peter will offer him a solution.

Peter blames them all: He blames his brother for being too absorbed in his projects to notice his youngest son’s sudden absences and happy, distant look. He blames himself for letting it lie. He blames Kate Argent for taking advantage of a child.

He can still feel her flesh tearing under his claws, the hot gush of blood on his skin.

The memory never fails to bring a smile to his face.  
   
-

Peter’s got a shopping list three pages long.

He thinks it’s about time they stocked the pantry with things more appetizing than cereal and canned tuna. Derek may not notice or care if what he’s putting in his mouth is fresh or crawling with chemicals, but Peter thinks preservatives taste too much like formaldehyde, like the lingering tang of disinfectant that took months to clear from the back of his throat.

He’s weighing oranges in his palms when Chris Argent comes around the corner. Peter sighs internally at his lack of awareness, quietly noting that the miasma of fruit-scents is a good cover for individual humans.

“Which one?” he asks him, holding up a blood orange and a navel, both of roughly the same size. Chris stares at him eyes unblinking, as if he’s trying to deduce which one Peter is going to throw at him. “It’s been years since I had the… ability to choose my own food,” Peter says, looking at one then the other, rolling them gently in his hands. “Living with someone whose tastebuds are roughly equivalent to sandpaper isn’t helping.”

Chris Argent blinks very slowly before pointing at the blood orange. “Seems more fitting,” he says. Peter smiles and gathers a few more navels, selecting them carefully.

“Why bother asking if you’re not going to listen to the answer?” Argent snaps, obviously irked.

“A question for the ages,” Peter says, moving on to avocados. Chris turns around and walks away, shoulders tight.

Peter feels himself smirking, watching him go.

-

Scott and Allison are on the porch when he gets home, Derek’s car filled with enough food to last two werewolves a long time and enough snacks to accommodate teenage guests.

Peter takes in his rigid posture, Allison’s hand held gently in Scott’s.

“I’m not going to be the arbiter of whatever screaming fight you’re about to have with Derek until you help me unload the trunk,” he says, tossing a gallon of water at Scott with enough force that he drops Allison’s hand to catch it.

Scott glares at him but takes a handful of bags anyway, well-mannered as he is. Allison crosses her arms and stands aside, hunter’s eyes fixed on Peter.

“The terms of the truce allow you in the territory with an escort,” he tells her, “no need to be so tense.” It’s enough of a dig at her Wolf Moon trespassing that he’s satisfied, watching her stiffen further. Derek is standing in the hall with his feet planted. Peter passes by him without touching, aware that Derek still can’t help but flinch away. Now is not the time to expose any part of him to Allison.

“We need to talk,” says Scott, hitching the water bottle up against his hip.

“Outside,” Derek bites out, glaring at them both.

Scott nods, following Peter into the kitchen and dropping his bags on the counter.

“Are you coming?” he asks, voice strained.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Peter tells him, placing a sharing-size bag of chips into the cabinet. Scott looks pained. Peter struggles not to laugh.

He heads outside, taking up a position leaning on one of the beams above the porch steps. Derek has his back to the house, facing Scott and Allison. Peter reminds himself to find someone to rake the driveway.

“If I join your pack, you have to promise me that Allison is safe here,” Scott says, face earnest and hard in equal measure. Peter winces as Derek’s shoulders tighten. The problem between them has always been this, their lack of understanding of the way the other thinks.

Scott’s not going to get anywhere by making demands and Derek will never concede to any terms he feels have been forced out of him.

Peter settles in to watch the car crash.

“If you join my pack you have to abide by the terms of any agreements negotiated by the pack that are already in place,” Derek retorts. He’s not _wrong_ , but Derek is still learning to pick his battles. “She’s trespassed once already,” he continues, accusatory.

“That was a gift!” Allison exclaims. She may even believe it, but to his credit, Derek knows better.

“That was a warning,” he snarls at her. Peter watches her square her shoulders and take a step forward before he decides that enough is enough.

“Shut up,” he says, standing shoulder to shoulder with Derek despite his glare. “As entertaining as it is to watch the three of you butt heads, we have a contract. You will not trespass on Hale territory without a member of the pack present with you. Scott has to become an official member of the pack for him to be a valid escort, so either both of you get off the property or Scott takes the pack bond. We have work to do, so take a day to decide. Get out.”

Scott stares at him, shocked. Allison opens her mouth and shuts it again and Peter smirks knowingly in her direction, happy to have surprised her.

Derek doesn’t say anything, tense and rigid in his peripheral vision, frustration ringing through the pack-sense like a bell. Scott takes in their evidently united front and glances at Allison. She nods at him and they leave, heads together. Peter tunes them out. Derek waits until they’re far enough away to mutter “we have work to do?” one eyebrow slowly rising.

“We still haven’t unpacked the car,” Peter confirms. Derek huffs out what might be a laugh, if Peter was feeling charitable. “He’ll come around, you know,” he adds. “But you’ll have to decide if you can stomach the girl.”

“Can you?” Derek’s already heading towards the Camaro, avoiding Peter’s eyes.

“I’ve had a good deal of revenge already,” he says, letting a surge of satisfaction travel down the bond. Derek shivers.

Peter forgets sometimes how little of Derek is truly taken up by violence.

-

Stiles is angry. It’s hard to tell from his face, occupied as it is by his mouthful of peanut butter, but his shoulders are up around his ears, feet tapping out a discordant rhythm on the hardwood floor.  
He takes the last bite of his sandwich and glares daggers at Peter as he enters the kitchen. Peter nods at him and moves towards the coffee machine, thinking fondly of a cappuccino.

“What’s your deal?” Stiles asks, swallowing just in time.

“Right now? I was hoping for coffee, but I could eat. Other than that, you’ll have to elaborate.” Peter packs his espresso just so, turning the dowel with a quick twist.

“Derek thinks you’re not staying,” Stiles tells him, munching on a bag of Doritos with a vengeance. He’s getting taller by the day, shoulders broadening, face developing harsher planes. It’s starting to match his eyes, hard and expressive.

“And what do _you_  think?” Peter asks him, steaming some milk.

“I think you’re incapable of not making a power play.” Stiles shoves the chip he’s gesturing with in his mouth and shakes the bag, looking into it with intent, eventually pulling out another handful and staring balefully at Peter. “I think you’re biding your time.”

Peter spoons his foam into the perfect shape and reaches for the chocolate powder, sprinkling a tiny dusting across the top.

“Stiles. I was buried under this house.” Stiles’ hand pauses on its way to his mouth, tension suddenly thick in the room. Stiles is linking slowly into the pack sense whether it’s intentional or not, and Derek will have to make a formal offer soon. Peter’s not naive enough to think he’ll do it easily, or without fear, but Stiles is slipping under his defenses regardless.

“So?” Stiles pushes, chewing defiantly.

“Blood binds,” he elaborates, taking a sip of his coffee. He lets go of some of his control, lets his peripheral senses bleed out into the room. Stiles recoils, waves of feedback humming between them; Peter’s blood is in the foundations, mixed with Derek’s, with generations of Hales. It’s confirmation that Stiles can feel it, that he’s weaving himself into their pack, even with his limited human senses.

“What the hell was that?” Stiles breathes, Doritos forgotten.

“History,” Peter tells him, enjoying the perfect coffee on his tongue mixing with the phantom taste of iron, ash, new growth. It’s bittersweet and cutting, resonant with his re-formed mind and the scattered pieces still absent.

Across the kitchen Stiles stares at him.

“Would you like some coffee?” Peter asks him, swirling the last of his around the bottom of his cup and debating making another.

“Still a few corn dogs short of a baseball game, huh?” Stiles mutters. It’s beginning to become redundant. Stiles laughs low and bitter, shaking his head. “Am I stuck with this now?” he asks, voice dry.

“Only if you want to be,” Peter tells him, reaching for the coffee grounds and closing down, pulling himself back.

Stiles will come in his own time.

-

Scott brings Allison with him at noon the next day. Derek is contemplatively smoothing out a board with fine-grain sandpaper, adding to the pile building up on the back porch. He hasn’t shared what he’s planning on doing with them. For all Peter knows it could be the exercise of sanding and sawing itself that’s the object.

He can feel the moment Derek tenses, awareness of Scott’s arrival bleeding out around him.

Peter doesn’t feel the need to tell him he’s got sawdust in his hair, choosing instead to witness the impending negotiations with Derek as is, wild-looking and dirt-streaked. Peter thinks it will add a certain spice to the proceedings.

They meet in the front hall, Derek frowning deeply enough that Peter takes a moment to examine what he’s feeling.

_Anger. Frustration. Fear._

“You don’t need him as much as you think you do,” he says, falling into step beside him.

“Shut up,” Derek snaps, but there’s no heat behind it. Peter sees his shoulders loosen slightly and smiles at him, keeping his teeth behind his lips.

Peter thinks there’s a lot to be said for presenting a united front.

Scott and Allison stand joined at the hands as usual, but they’ve tempered their demands. He can feel Scott reaching for the pack-sense, even if the balance of his desire is subconscious. He wonders if being dead has granted him more insight than he was looking for, but shakes it off, waiting for a better time.

“Do you accept?” Derek asks Scott, fairly vibrating with held-in tension.

“Yes,” Scott says, and suddenly he can feel him, can feel his turbulent, simplistic teenage emotions blending into the bond in slow waves. Scott reels, fingers tightening in Allison’s grip. She frowns in concern even as Derek lets a tiny smile flit across his face.

Peter lets himself float on it for an instant before grounding himself, watching.

“Do you accept the terms of the truce?” Derek asks Allison. Peter watches her watch Scott, still wide-eyed and open.

“Yes,” she says reluctantly. She’s already bound by the contract she signed with her father, but Peter is interested to see how much more Scott means to her than oaths on paper. He supposes she must take after her mother that way, knowing the stock her father puts in rules.

Derek’s satisfaction is a living thing, something in him finally inching towards stability, towards standing secure in his position. Peter feels a bit more of the little well of power he took from Laura seep away from him.

He lets it go. His own power is coming back slowly, beginning to push against his skin again.

-

Stiles beams at him, feet kicking back rhythmically against the porch siding, evidently oblivious to Derek’s glare as he tries to avoid showering him with woodchips from the plank he’s sawing.

“That’s a nice dead animal you’ve got there,” Stiles calls out, marking his page with a sliver of pine.

Peter hefts the pronghorn higher onto his shoulder, grinning.

“Breakfast,” he announces, waiting a beat, “unless you want to cook it first.”

“Gross,” Stiles says, wrinkling his nose.

“Save me the heart,” Derek chips in, finally getting through the wood.

“You’re both disgusting,” Stiles announces, pointedly going back to his book. Peter meets Derek’s eyes over Stiles’ head and takes in the naked fondness in them before Derek slams his shutters down, sawing at his next plank with a vengeance. The little smirk playing around the corners of his mouth doesn’t quite fade, even when Stiles gags extravagantly at the carcass Peter leaves in front of them.

It’s the morning after the Crow Moon and Peter can still feel the wildness of the full shift racing along his veins, the heady rush of his fangs closing over his prey’s throat still fresh in his mind. The edge of his control is finer than it used to be, but his kill was clean even if it came long after the rest of the pack was curled up, sated. He can feel Scott and Allison asleep upstairs, tangled together in one of the guest rooms, his awareness expanding to include all of them, even the three distant minds hundreds of miles away. He reels it in carefully, re-structuring his mind around words instead of instincts.

It’s a ritual now, the expansion and retraction of his senses, a careful affirmation of control.

He washes the blood off his face and hands in the downstairs bathroom and goes to join them on the porch, early morning sunlight warming the cool spring day.

“What are you going to do with those?” Peter asks at last, taking in the pile of perfectly even planks under the eaves.

“None of your business,” Derek mutters, tossing another one down. Stiles rolls his eyes and throws a woodchip at him. Derek ducks without looking, not even pausing his aggressive carpentry.

If Stiles hasn’t already made up his mind to say yes to him, Peter will have to seriously re-evaluate his perceptions.

-

Peter gets a letter two weeks later stamped with the courthouse seal.

“ _Summoned to appear on a charge of poaching?_ ” Derek yells, anger rolling out of him until it reaches everyone, sending a discordant shiver up Peter’s spine. And he’d been so comfortable.

He marks his page with the book jacket and finds Derek going through the mail in the kitchen. Peter takes the offending piece of paper and smoothes it out, crumpled from Derek’s fist.

“Well, I suppose it isn’t pronghorn season yet,” Peter says, reading the accusation. “Don’t worry, we ate the proof,” he tells him, folding the summons and pocketing it.

Derek takes a long swallow of his coffee, trying not to laugh despite himself. Peter holds in an answering smirk.

“Don’t open my mail,” Peter says, pouring himself a cup. He makes a face at Derek’s awful brew, entirely too strong and tasting slightly of moss.

“Don’t get us in trouble with the law,” Derek retorts, grimacing at the electricity bill.

“I’d be reluctant to throw that stone, myself,” Peter observes, throwing the entire pot of coffee away.

-

“You could have just called,” he says, mouth probably too close to Chris Argent’s ear. The satisfaction of watching him twitch tempers any discomfort at being almost flush with his back, but he pulls away to avoid an elbow to the face.

“You’re hunting out of season,” Chris growls at him. It’s worrying, the vein throbbing in his forehead, but not enough to stop Peter from teasing him a bit more.

“Prove it.”

Peter is nothing if not glib; the case was dismissed in record time, not even a fine to show for his troubles. The shade of angry red rising up Chris’ face from his neckline in the observers’ section was a particularly nice touch.

“Sir, you’re going to have to leave,” the court deputy tells him, placing a hand on his upper arm. Peter stiffens involuntarily before taking a deep breath, turning a sharp smile on him.

“Give us a moment,” he says, showing the barest hint of fangs. The deputy swallows and retracts his fingers. “Thank you.”

“I’m adding ‘threatening civilians’ to the list,” Chris mutters, watching the deputy retreat to a safe distance.

“Was getting me summoned to civil court really necessary?” Peter can’t deny the inconvenience of it, though as a prank it lacks imagination. “I can go grocery shopping more often, although I must admit, freshly killed meat has a far superior taste.”

Chris frowns, silent. There’s something off about this scenario and it irks him that he can’t quite put his finger on why.

It’s _petty_ , even if it was never likely to stick. That must be it, the action so out of character for his opponent.

“Are you alright?”

“What?” Chris looks affronted.

“This is beneath you,” Peter informs him, looking around at the little circle of courthouse employees trying to pretend they aren’t listening in.

“Go to hell,” Chris snaps, pulse rising.

“I didn’t care for it,” Peter can’t resist saying, tone smooth and bland. He walks out of the room before he can be escorted, keeping a tight hold on his anger.

He lets his claws dig deep gouges in the steering wheel, calling it a better option.

-

“Just tell him,” he hears Scott say, voice tired like he’s said the words before, possibly a few times over.

“No,” Allison says, tone firm.

“He’s going to find out anyway,” drifts down from Stiles, obviously playing the devil’s advocate on the issue. Peter makes himself known, thankful that he was downwind and for Scott’s still sub-par peripheral awareness.

“If you’re trying to hide something from Derek, I’d counsel you against it,” he chips in, sitting down opposite them, “he doesn’t take it well.” Peter’s learned that at the end of his claws, even if he did bring himself back to life eventually.

“Uh,” says Scott, heartbeat skipping ever so slightly.

“Oh. If it’s the fact that Allison told her father about our _al fresco_  dining habits, then you can stop worrying.” He’s gratified by their collective guilty looks.

“Sorry,” Allison says, staring him straight in the eye.

“Tell him to do better next time,” Peter says, hoping the message will reach her father unaltered.

There are plenty of ways to spar.

-

“Go fuck yourself!” Stiles yells, storming out of the house in a huff. He slams into Peter’s shoulder on his way down the front hall and he makes an effort to tamp down on the urge to rip him limb from limb. Stiles snarls at him, blunt little teeth bared. Peter snarls back, fangs dropping down in a row like a guillotine. Stiles doesn’t even spare him a second glance, heading for the exit.

The door slams loudly enough that Stiles must have thrown it back towards the frame with extreme prejudice. The silence would be deafening were it not for the slight ringing in his ears. Derek is standing at the top of the stairs, face naked. Peter takes it in, registers his abject confusion and rising anger.

“Do I want to know?” he asks him, watching Derek jerk his focus back into his body.

“I asked about Lydia,” Derek says, looking dazed and worn in equal measure.

“Why?” Peter asks, listening to Stiles’ jeep roar away.

“It seemed like a good time,” Derek mumbles, running a hand through his hair.

“Sometimes,” Peter says, enunciating clearly, “I want to shake you until you pay attention.”

Derek turns around and goes back to his study, declining to answer.

-

The cold spring mornings are getting brighter earlier and Peter feels the urge to run again taking hold.

It’s different than the shift, a calmer, more prosaic desire to exercise his body, so he starts running into town, ending up at the tiny bakery on fifth that does fresh cinnamon buns every morning and has the best roast around.

The baristas start learning his order. It’s a strange feeling, to realize that he’s settled back into the daily ebb and flow of Beacon Hills despite himself. He feels the unease building and tamps it down, telling himself that to leave would mean cutting ties for good and he’s not _quite_  ready to do that. He can’t quite stem the desire to slice into something though, to feel his claws digging holes into anything smooth and pristine, just for the sake of it. He takes in deep, cool breaths, riding it out.

Still, he stands frozen in front of the café doors for longer than he means to, taking in the fact that he knows who’s working by their own distinct movements, that he knows the pastries will be under-done in that deliberate way he appreciates from the temperature of the ovens.

He can smell summer around the corner and the part of him that bears fangs forever soaked in blood snarls and demands a kill.

He settles for pushing open the doors and sinking his teeth into something novel for being entirely mundane.

The young man at the counter smiles at him and hands him his usual.

Peter smiles back, fangs hidden where they should be.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he says, biting into his breakfast. The boy looks nonplussed, but Peter can feel Chris Argent behind him, wiping his shoes on the mat. Peter winks at the confused barista and turns around. “If I didn’t know better I would say you were following me,” he continues, taking a pointed sip of his black coffee.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Chris bites out, staring at the corner of his mouth. Peter catches the offending crumb with his tongue and raises an eyebrow, blocking his way to the counter. A line begins to form behind Chris, waiting for him to step forward.

“Try the croissants,” Peter advises him, leaning back against the counter.

“Get out of the way,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Relax, Christopher,” Peter purrs, finishing his cinnamon bun, “I wouldn’t go so far as to maul you in public.”

“Do I have to spell out what would happen if you were to maul me at all?” Chris says, crossing his arms and shooting a filthy glare at the woman trying to cut in front of him in line.

“You’re being obstructive,” he tells him, licking sugar off his fingers. Chris takes a reluctant step forward and Peter can smell his skin, can hear the steady beating of his heart. He takes another swallow of his coffee, covering the sharpening of his teeth.

“Uh, are you going to… order something?” The barista squeaks, looking back and forth between them.

“He’ll have a croissant and a hazelnut latte,” Peter says, ordering over his shoulder. Chris opens his mouth as if to protest but Peter’s already moving past him, brushing his shoulder lightly.

“The coffee is excellent,” he says, throwing his cup in the garbage and jogging out the door.

He focuses on the steady rhythm of running, tearing himself away from the rushing of human blood in his ears.

Maybe it _is_  time for another kill.

-

“Come hunting with me,” Peter says, sharpening one of the skinning knives on the back porch, enjoying the bright, rasping sound. Derek stares at him, one foot out the back door.

“No,” he says, stepping fully out the door and heading down the steps.

“When was the last time you took a life?” Peter asks him, already knowing the answer from the set of his shoulders, from the wall he slams down on Peter’s gentle probing of the bond. Peter is just cruel enough to make him say it, but he’s too impatient for another fight.

“It’s about time you washed Jackson’s blood off your hands,” he says, moving on to the next knife.

“With _more?_ ” Derek asks, unconsciously flexing his fingers.

“You can’t change if you never move, Derek. Take it from someone who was a corpse for a while.”

“Your batting average is not very high on good advice,” Derek snarls, looking out into the woods, anywhere but at Peter. He doesn’t take it too personally.

“If you don’t come with me I might leave whatever I kill on Chris Argent’s lawn,” Peter says, matter-of-factly laying it out in terms Derek will have to try very hard to misunderstand.

“I could order you not to,” Derek mutters, staring intently at a bird passing overhead.

“You’d be taking a chance on your authority,” he muses, happily talking a tightening circle around his nephew.

It shouldn’t be this hard to convince him to run, to hunt. There’s something blocking him in; it’s not Peter’s job to fix him but Derek is sinking because he _refuses_  to swim, not because he _can’t_.

There’s enough of Peter that knows he used the power of being an Alpha for ends beyond revenge, that knows how seductive it is, even when it didn’t sit well on his shoulders. He knows what it feels like to hold that kind of gift in check: the rush of _potential_  is a siren call, but there is, as always, a balance. He’ll take maneuverability over brute strength this time. He’s already tipped the scales in order to facilitate his resurrection and the price is yet to be revealed.

“Letting all that rage build up won’t end well,” he continues, losing himself in the smooth movements of the stone and knife.

“I’m not running with you tonight,” Derek says, edge of command in his voice leaving his throat ragged.

“Then do it alone, or take Scott, although I don’t imagine he’ll be good company. _I_  am going to kill an elk, and I’m going to eat it. Trust me, it’s very therapeutic.”

Derek laughs, small and bitter on ‘trust me.’

Peter could throw himself wide open to the pack, could let Derek flay him to satisfy his curiosity, but he won’t. Derek is going to have to take the leap himself, sooner or later.

Besides, Derek would be unwise to trust him, and Derek may be young and he may be damaged, but he isn’t ignorant of the intricacies of _pack_  the way his betas are, nor is he blind to what Peter is.

Peter puts the knives away and leaves his clothes in a neat pile, stretching into the shift with a smile full of pointed teeth.

The forest comes alive with prey.

-

Stiles is back in the morning, using the espresso machine with a total lack of finesse.

“Turn the milk while you froth it,” Peter suggests, debating the effort it would take to make eggs.

“Thank you for your input,” Stiles says, ignoring his advice.

“Give me that,” Peter says, unable to watch him butcher the delicate process.

Stiles takes his hands off the machine like he’s being burned, leaning against the opposite counter and watching Peter carefully.

Peter ignores him, producing a beautiful cappuccino and extending it to him, handle out.

“You should go work at Starbucks, the soccer moms would love it,” Stiles says, pointedly not taking his coffee. Peter shrugs and takes a sip, happy to have salvaged the espresso.

“Then again, you do occasionally look as though you’re thinking very hard about ripping peoples’ faces off, so maybe the tips wouldn’t be great,” Stiles rambles, lanky arms folded.

“Only occasionally?” Peter asks, playing along.

“I bet your mom was always telling you it would stick that way,” Stiles says, eyes on the ceiling like he’ll be able to look through the wood and up into Derek’s bedroom.

“He hasn’t asked you to join the pack yet, has he?” Peter says, watching the last of his foam blend with the dark brown coffee as he swirls the mug.

“Peter, I say this with absolutely none of the love in my heart: butt out.” Stiles stirs a spoonful of instant Americano into a tea cup with some lukewarm water and takes an aggressive swallow, holding Peter’s eyes. Peter fights not to smile.

“Hm. I asked you once, Stiles,” Peter says, taking a step in his direction. “You have a choice to make. You rejected _my_  offer so it has very little to do with me, although, I have to say, for my part, I hope you say yes. The bite would make it easier.”

“You’re a terrible matchmaker,” Stiles breathes, voice high but hands steady.

“You’ve watched too many Disney movies,” Peter retorts, pleased with Stiles’ sharp intake of breath over a surprised laugh. “Come find me if you want to learn how to skin an elk,” he says, heading outside.

“I don’t!” Stiles yells indignantly. His heart pounds, young and strong behind him.

-

“Where’s my kid?” Sheriff Stilinski looks bone-tired and careworn but still determined enough to parent his child that he’ll drive half an hour into the woods to find him at the end of what has obviously been a long shift. Peter can see the value of his love, even if it’s long since become something maintained in spite of a lack of trust.

“I haven’t seen him all day,” Peter says, wiping his hands on the old towel next to him and cleaning enough blood off the boning knife that he can put it down.

Sheriff Stilinski takes in the scene with remarkable equanimity, considering the unfortunate spatter across Peter’s chest.

“My apologies, I wasn’t expecting guests,” he explains.

“Do you even have a hunting license?” the sheriff mutters, before shaking his head and re-focusing. “Any idea where he might have gone?”

Peter has several, but he tries to choose the one least likely to result in a family feud. Stiles is only tentatively present in Peter’s awareness, but his inclusion is almost a given at this point, so he stretches, gambling on the general proximity of Stiles to Derek. The reddish alpha presence pulses in annoyance at being sought out, deep enough in the forest to be a good hour’s walk away, if one is accommodating a bipedal friend.

He pulls himself back in time to see Stilinski staring at him with an uncomfortably shrewd light in his eyes.

“If I… remember correctly,” Peter says, feeling out the atmosphere, “Stiles mentioned something about hiking.”

Stilinski folds his arms like he knows he’s not getting the whole story. Peter debates the merits of enlightening him, thinking it will be an entertaining discussion at the very least.

“You’re looking well,” the Sheriff offers, obviously fishing.

“Miraculously so, I’m told,” Peter says, waiting for the next question.

“Funny how convenient amnesia can be,” Stilinski says, pulling out his phone; if he’s hoping for a text he’ll probably be disappointed. He surprises Peter by holding it up and snapping a picture of him instead, little flash abrupt.

“I’d have smiled for you if you’d warned me,” Peter says, watching his face.

Stilinski frowns at his screen, looking between Peter and his likeness. The glare must be particularly bad in the evening gloom.

“Family oddity, I’m afraid,” he says, smirking slightly. “We were never a photogenic bunch.”

“Tell Stiles to call me when he gets back please,” The Sheriff says, making as if to get back in his patrol car.

“Would you like some coffee?” Peter asks him, glancing at the small carcass he’s working on. “I can be finished with this quickly.”

“I have to say, I’m curious,” the Sheriff concedes, neglecting to mention the object of his interest. Peter supposes it must be difficult to narrow it down to just one thing.

-

Stiles freezes in the doorway.

Peter can see him over his father’s head, eyes comically wide. Derek materializes behind him with a perplexed expression and a bag of tools.

“So you add cinnamon to the milk before you steam it?” Sheriff Stilinski asks Peter, looking into his mug in appreciation.

“I’m partial to it, although it’s not to everyone’s taste,” Peter says, sipping his own slowly. “Speaking of which,” he gestures at their audience.

“You took your time,” the Sheriff says, taking in Stiles’ dirt-streaked shirt and Derek’s muddy boots. Peter can smell blood, spots a little cut on Stiles’ hand that’s already scabbed over.

“How did you know I was here?” Stiles asks, sounding far more tired than he should after walking in the woods. Peter probes gently, lets his vision slide a bit until he can see the energy bleeding slowly between Stiles and Derek in a steady seep.

“You and Scott don’t really think you’re good liars, do you?” The Sheriff asks, tone deceptively mild.

Derek bites his lip hard enough that Peter can tell when he breaks the skin; even if the sudden spike of trepidation hadn’t shot through the room it would have been enough to alert him to how little Derek wants to have this conversation.

“I had a very interesting talk with Melissa,” Stilinski continues, finishing his coffee, “why don’t you both sit down?”

Stiles glances at Derek, a small twist to his lips.

“So, about that thing that we never talk about,” he tells him, eyes dark with intent. The pause hangs, pregnant, before he continues, “ _I accept_.” Stiles’ voice carries to Derek and Peter, to his father, to the universe at large. Derek never has a chance to answer, face going sheet white at the sudden impact.

Stiles’ presence hits the pack like a wrecking ball, like a bolt from a crossbow carving out a place and settling in it, determined not to be missed. It’s harsh enough to send a stab of pain across the back of Peter’s eyes, a declaration in Stiles’ lack of finesse.

“Well,” Peter says to Derek, currently clutching his temples with his lips peeled back from his abundant fangs, “looks like it’s not just you who likes to make an entrance.”

Stiles laughs, dark and low and just a tiny bit cruel, letting the hard center of his mean streak bleed out for a split second before he sits down next to his father with the air of someone with nothing left to hide.

Sheriff Stilinski looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, frozen in place.

“He’s a werewolf,” Stiles says, pointing a long finger at Derek, “and so is he,” aiming at Peter.

“And what are _you_?” Stilinski asks his son, obviously unsurprised at the revelation.

“Pack,” says Peter, finishing his coffee.

-

The line of Mountain Ash around the Argent house is mildly inconvenient. Peter sighs and settles for leaning against Chris’ giant metaphor of a truck, prepared to wait.

He’s not there long before Chris walks out the front door, face thunderous.

“Did you _really_  just try to sneak into my house?” he hisses, face close enough to Peter’s that he can see the purple circles under his eyes. Peter doesn’t bother to deny it, looking speculatively for a weak spot.

“Would you like to come running?” Peter asks him, taking in the way his shirt is hanging a bit looser than it used to.

“What?”

“Running. It increases blood flow to the brain.” Peter watches the color rise in his face and smirks, raising his hands theatrically enough that any neighbors would see confrontation.

“Get off my property,” Chris hisses, fingers fisting in Peter’s shirt.

“Victoria must have been the hospitable one,” Peter drawls. His back slams into the side of the SUV hard enough to force some air out of his lungs, the impact ringing along his spine. “I don’t think that counts as foreplay,” he wheezes, “no matter how overcompensatory your vehicle.”

“What do you want?” Chris bites out, arms bracketing Peter in an obvious attempt to resist strangling him. Peter’s not sure he’d mind the challenge, but he  _has_  signed away his right to permanently disfigure him. Shame. It may, in hindsight, have been a touch premature.

“I was going to take you out running in an attempt to soften the blow of telling you we have a new pack member.” Peter lets the truck take more of his weight, tilting his chin up slightly to get a better look at Chris’ face. “This angle doesn’t do you any favors,” he says, lowering his hands.

Chris takes a step back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Stiles.”

“If you’re surprised then I’ve underestimated you,” Peter tells him, smoothing the crumpled fabric of his shirt. “I have to say, at this rate you’re going to be working yourself to the bone trying to keep an eye on us all, despite your Mata Hari.”

“You may have everyone else fooled,” Chris says, voice dropping down into the closest register to a growl that Peter has heard from a human in a long while, “but I’ve been a hunter long enough to know threats when I see them. You’re not as de-fanged as everyone seems to think you are.”

“Is that so?” Peter purrs, pointedly examining his fingernails for traces of blood.

“I remember what you were like before,” Chris says, eyes cold in his haggard face.

Peter feels the smile stretching his face like a slow slice from a blade, skin parting in its wake. “Enlighten me.”

“I don’t think I need to.” Chris steps back over the line of black powder, retreating into his fortress. Peter thinks he must imagine himself besieged from every corner, the lifetime of wariness and suspicion finally turning on his psyche.

Still, damned if he’s going to let Chris Argent delude himself into thinking Peter has anything left of a _better nature_ , even if he’s not precisely calling out to it.

“All that righteousness is starting to affect your posture, Christopher.” Peter casts an eye over him critically.

“Don’t ever talk about my wife again,” Argent says, lips drawn back in a parody of a snarl.

Peter keeps his knife-cut grin. “Hypocrite.”

Chris Argent turns his back, safe inside his circle.

-

Stiles forwards Boyd’s regular emails to everyone, usually titled something along the lines of ‘Duckling Diaries.’ Peter rarely reads them, unless Derek is sulking particularly hard on a Wednesday, when Stiles usually receives them.

This Wednesday Derek has a somewhat unsettling aura of satisfaction, so Peter pulls out his phone and checks his mail.

“You should plan something,” Peter tells him, assembling ingredients at random for an experiment.

“For what?”

“For the Solstice,” Peter says, weighing an eggplant against a zucchini. “It’s tradition.”

“They don’t know that,” Derek says, staring out the kitchen window.

“So teach them. You don’t want me to do it or you would have heavily implied that I was doing something that causes you intense displeasure until I figured out what you were really after.” Peter decides to use both vegetables, setting them aside.

“If I wanted you to do it, I would have asked,” Derek says, raising an eyebrow.

“If that’s what you’re telling yourself,” Peter says, slicing into a squash.

Derek rolls his eyes and leaves, tapping buttons on his phone with entirely too much force.

Peter skins the squash with surgical precision.

-

Boyd, Erica and Isaac come back the week before midsummer, either gently ejected from the Oregon pack for their Solstice celebrations or back of their own accord. Boyd refuses to talk to Peter after the whole debacle with the Kanima and although Erica is obviously dying to ask, her loyalties are clear.

Isaac is a bit more nebulous in his disapproval, fitting somewhere between Stiles and Scott in his cautious probing.

“Now’s your chance,” Peter tells him magnanimously, closing his laptop and catching his eye.

“I felt it,” Isaac begins, staring, “when Stiles… joined?”

“Good,” Peter tells him, pleased. “Your little threesome is young enough that it might have passed you by, so far away.”

“We’re not…” Isaac tries, looking at Peter under his eyelashes.

Peter grins at him, enjoying his discomfort. “Stop thinking like a human,” he counsels, senses bleeding out to pinpoint everybody, occupying various positions of avoidance, “no pack will judge you for taking comfort in each other.”

“I _was_  a human until about a year ago,” Isaac says, indignant.

“And look how well that went.”

“Oh, like you’ve got such a solid leg to stand on,” Isaac mutters.

Peter’s smile stretches, gleeful. “That’s more like it,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “I knew that spine was in there somewhere.” Peter’s got a few ideas about Isaac’s spine that aren’t really relevant to his teasing, but the boy can take it now, growing into himself a little more.

“It’s not a compliment if you say it like you want to actually take it out and look at it,” Derek snaps from the doorway. Isaac jumps. Peter turns his grin on his nephew, watching his scowl setting firmly in place.

“It would probably heal,” he points out.

Isaac chokes back a laugh.

-

“We’re having a Solstice party,” Stiles tells him, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

“That’ll scuff,” Peter observes, going back to the newspaper.

“No,” Derek says shortly, moving on to the next page of his textbook.

“Yes it will,” Peter says, deliberately obtuse. Derek snaps his pencil.

“No, we are not having a Solstice party,” he says, glaring at both of them.

“I think it will be a good opportunity to prove to certain interested factions that we’re regrouping, actually,” Stiles says, leaning over to pluck the pencil shards from Derek’s fingers. He sticks the unbroken end of one piece in his mouth, grinning around it.

Derek stares at him, mouth slightly open. “Anyway,” Stiles continues around the eraser in his teeth, “I’ve already made an event on facebook. Keep next Saturday free.”

-

Stiles’ talents extend to politics, evidently. Peter hadn’t dared to hope that he would allow himself to be so...  _manipulative_  isn’t quite the right word, but it’s close. It will come maybe, once Stiles has had the chance to let himself settle into being jaded.

The shortest night of the year is peacetime, grievances declared moot from dusk until dawn.

Stiles invites Lydia, and she declines. Deaton and Morrell have taken up the positions with the best view, obviously unwilling to take the party at face value. The Argents are nowhere to be seen, even Allison staying away, judging by Scott’s dejected face.

“You’re good at this,” Peter tells him, watching as the guests trickle in, bewildered humans and cautiously happy betas mingling gently around the restored house. Stiles watches his father take a beer from Derek’s reluctant hand with a frown.

“I am this close to putting a bell on you,” Stiles tells him, sipping his drink.

“Not as well-attended as you’d hoped?” he probes, looking for a weak spot to press, other than the obvious.

“I’m going to get drunk,” Stiles announces, “so that I can pretend you don’t exist and I can stop having nightmares about your teeth.” Peter smiles broadly at him, mostly for effect. Stiles glares at him, heart steady.

The Argents’ absence is a clear enough message that truce is more a synonym for ceasefire than for peace.

-

Peter volunteers to speak to the hunters by dint of not asking permission, running over the distance as dawn filters through the trees.

He may not be able to cross the line of mountain ash, but there is nothing governing the passage of inanimate objects. He weighs the pebbles in his hand and calculates a quick trajectory. The stones hit the windows with a clatter and Peter strikes a pose, leaning back against a tree with his ankles crossed.

Chris Argent storms out of the house, gun at the ready. He stops short when he catches sight of Peter, holstering his weapon with visible reluctance.

“Go away,” he hisses, edges of his boots not quite disturbing the barrier.

“No,” Peter retorts, looking him up and down. “By the way? I hear insomnia’s a symptom of anxiety. I couldn’t help but notice your absence tonight,” he continues mildly, sun creeping higher, moving the balance back into the human world, “and that of your new apprentice.”

“We signed a truce, not a love-note.” Chris crosses his arms, fingers digging in until his knuckles turn an ugly, bloodless color.

Peter laughs, looking him up and down. “You take everything seriously, don’t you?” he asks, already knowing the answer. “Maybe it was just a party.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Chris lunges, months of simmering frustration coming to a head with the daybreak. He drags him inside the circle, line of ash broken by his feet in his rush to grab Peter by the throat, teeth bared. Peter smiles and lets himself be taken, amused at the fury on Chris’ face.

“What’s so funny?” he bites out, pulling Peter into the house and crowding him up against the back of the door, slamming it shut.

“You are,” Peter manages, gasping as Chris’ hand tightens.

“I may not be able to hurt you, but I can find another way of making my point,” Chris threatens, heart beating strong and angry in his chest. Peter can hear the blood rushing under his skin, can see it pushing at the veins in his neck. He wonders how Chris would take a bite and smiles, fangs hidden behind his teeth.

“Who says you can’t hurt me?” he whispers, beginning to feel the lack of oxygen. Chris’ hand loosens reflexively, becoming a warm weight in the hollow of his collarbones.

“What?” Chris’ eyes narrow.

“You can’t _harm_  me. Nowhere in the fine print does it say that _hurting_  me is off the table.” He brings a hand up and circles Chris’ wrist with his fingers, touch light and firm. “Go ahead,” he tells him, pushing his palm back up so that it’s gripping him by the throat again, “take advantage of the loophole.”

“You’re insane,” Chris says, left hand coming up beside Peter’s head, Chris bracing himself to lean in closer.

“Mostly,” Peter agrees, thumb stroking lightly over his skin. Chris shudders, nails digging in over Peter’s jugular. He gasps, feeling the rough scrape of them against his skin.

“Why won’t you stop _pushing_?” Chris demands, chest almost flush with his.

“A fatal flaw in my character,” Peter forces out, reveling in the harsh pull of breath past Chris' grip.

Chris’ left hand fists in his hair and he smiles wider at the sting of it, something hot and conflicted blooming in Chris’ eyes in response.

“I don’t know what you’re after,” Chris insists, but there’s an uptick in his heart that belies his insistence. Peter lets himself go limp in his grip and suddenly Chris is holding him up, hands like vises as he moves in automatically to compensate. Peter spreads his legs and gives him his whole weight, waiting.

Chris shakes his head minutely and steps back, dropping him. Peter goes easily to his knees, landing heavily on the dusty hardwood with Chris staring down at him with a look of terrible confusion, hands clenched into fists at his side. They stay frozen for a long moment, Peter leaning back to rest his head on the door behind him, baring his throat to Chris’ anger and hoping he’ll snap, hoping he’ll reveal the violence shifting just under the surface of his _honor_.

A long finger traces along the line of his jaw and Peter looks up, smirking. “Go ahead,” he says softly, spreading his hands.

The slap is barely enough to leave a trace of red, barely the tip of what he wants to see from him. He stretches his neck to the side with a low laugh, pleased. “Don’t hold back, Christopher,” he murmurs, watching the conflict play out on his face with something that promises satisfaction building, “unless you’re trying not to break a nail.”

Chris _snarls_ , fist connecting with enough force that Peter rocks with it, sprawling across the floor. _That’s it_ , he thinks, feeling his smile turn feral, _break yourself on me so I can watch you come apart._

Chris crouches next to him, hand pressing into his chest as if to keep him down. “Is this how you want the scene to play, Peter?” he asks, making a fist in the fabric of his shirt like a promise.

“You’re a little slow on the uptake but you get there in the end,” Peter says, hooking an ankle around Chris’ leg and yanking him closer, pulling his balance over on his hips. They crash together as Chris goes down, taken off guard. Peter takes the next glancing blow with a long laugh, tasting blood on his tongue.

“Shut up,” Chris snaps, grabbing his face with a total lack of finesse, fragile human hand hot with bruises already. “Just _shut up_.”

Peter runs his tongue over his lips, probing the split bleeding into his mouth. The heavy iron tang of blood spreads deliciously as he wraps his legs around Chris and drags him down, arms still spread in invitation. Chris doesn’t resist the pull, sinking slowly lower and Peter can _smell_  him, tired and unshaven and slowly fraying over his prone body.

Peter’s hopelessly, achingly hard watching him tear himself apart trying to extrapolate the rules of the game.

Peter rolls lazily beneath him, grinning. Chris makes a noise not far off a sob and lunges forward, biting hard into his lips with his little human teeth. Peter laughs into his mouth and lets him have his way, lets him navigate the edges of his control by the taste of his tongue.

Hands brace themselves over the bones of Peter’s wrists, gripping him like a lifeline.  The feeling of teeth makes him gasp, nerves humming in response to Chris’ surrender to his own violence at last.

The world comes into sharp, glorious focus as Chris rumbles out what might be a growl if he were a wolf and slides his leg between Peter’s, pulling their bodies together in a rush of heat. The cold wood at his back and the smell of old dust long settled mingles with the rough, heady scent of arousal and the glorious, frustrating friction between them. Peter makes a show of struggling in his grip, pulling bruises up into his skin under Chris’ rigid fingers with deliberate movements. Chris breathes heavily into the join of his neck and shoulder, digging his nails into Peter’s skin hard enough to draw raw, red crescents before he pulls away. Peter tilts his head back for a better angle as Chris bites down again, teeth breaking skin with an abrupt snap, blood seeping out in a slow slide. The smell is heady, intoxicating and Peter writhes beneath him, welcoming the pain.

Chris jerks his head up. Peter smiles at him with abandon, taking in the sight of him with blood on his teeth, eyes blown wide with the burning rage he thinks he keeps so well hidden. He cups Chris' cheek with nothing like gentleness, angry purple marks in the shape of Chris’ fingers around his wrist fading to yellow already as he watches, appreciating the contrast. A drop of blood falls from Chris' bottom lip, warm where it splashes on his skin. Peter feels the low throbbing of their hearts’ opposing rhythms deep in his chest and slides his other hand between them ever so slowly, feeling Chris shiver against him.

Peter arches up all of a sudden, meeting Chris’ startled resistance with fluid strength and surging motion until he has him pinned beneath him, thrashing in his grip with a snarl, bloodstained and beyond words.

“Did you think I was going to make it easy?” he asks him, leaning down to taste his own blood on Chris’ mouth. “Stay,” he orders, resting a hand on his throat in an echo of Chris’ greeting, heavy with promise. He goes perfectly still, rigid with betrayal. “Good,” Peter purrs, teasing at the hem of his shirt with the barest hint of a claw, watching too-soft skin take shape to follow the trail he’s carving.

Chris begins to shake when he follows the paths he’s traced with his tongue, learning what grief and madness taste like on another person. Fabric parts under his fingers as he moves lower, looking up along Chris’ body to watch him as he takes him into his mouth.

The strangled scream he gives is intoxicating, his blood rushing in Peter’s ears as he pulls him deeper, a tiny brush of teeth in the wake of his lips. Chris lunges up and suddenly his hands are sinking into Peter’s hair until his fingers twist, pushing him down with the strength of desperation and shuddering out his climax with a low rush of breath.

Peter sinks his claws into Chris’ thighs in retaliation, the scent of Chris’ blood mingling with the taste of him in his mouth.

Peter takes himself in hand, looking at the mess he’s made of Chris Argent, shirt ripped and jeans pushed down around his hips, blood-streaked and undone by Peter’s ungentle touch. It’s _perfect_ , Chris utterly stripped of control on Peter’s razor edges. He allows himself the bright moment of orgasm with a laugh, fitting himself into Chris’ side as he drifts back down.

“I think we’ve ruined your floor,” he says, throat raw, drawing a lazy pattern with mingled fluids on the varnish. Chris doesn’t respond, arm thrown over his eyes and one hand still clenched painfully tight in Peter’s hair.

-

Peter steps out of the bathroom and comes face to face with Stiles. “Good afternoon,” he says mildly, pushing his hair back away from his eyes.

“There’s a shower in your bathroom,” Stiles says, looking away.

“This one has better water pressure,” Peter explains, not even slightly sore from the dawn but holding the memory of it in his muscles. He rolls his shoulders, smiling.

“Should I congratulate you? Is that what people do in really awkward situations when their creepiest acquaintance wakes everybody up at the literal crack of dawn with some wonderfully disturbing mental bleed?”

Peter laughs, shaking his head hard enough to fling water around the hallway. Stiles squawks and jumps back, disgusted.

“I did not sign up for this,” Stiles hisses, skirting around him and pounding down the stairs.

_Yes you did_ , thinks Peter, watching him go.

The thing is, everything here is beginning to chafe now that the house is restored, now that the pack is solidifying. Peter’s got a great deal of self-control but a limited willingness to restrain himself. He’ll always be tied here in a way, but he doesn’t truly need to stay now that he’s left pieces of himself to hold his place.

-

Peter finds the treehouse in September, the scent of Stiles and Derek strong enough in a certain part of the woods that he’s finally giving in to his intense curiosity, moment carefully chosen.

It’s tiny and perfectly formed, a ladder rolled up on the little ledge, the roof slanted to blend in with the tree they’ve chosen.

He goes up to look, unable and frankly disinclined to resist his urges.

The view is nothing much, trees in all directions. It’s definitely not a tactical choice.

There are things dotted around that speak of occupancy beyond just occasional visits. There’s a lantern and a pile of well-thumbed novels, a carefully folded quilt.

_Well_  then.

He inhales deeply and closes his eyes, drifting on the calm until he’s settled enough to remember, listening to his own blood rushing around his body.

They’d gotten married on the Harvest Moon, mostly to everyone’s surprise. She’d laughed and pinned him down and pronounced him hers, and that he was going to take her somewhere cold for their honeymoon, she was sick of California weather.

As punches had gone, it had been a stunningly easy one to roll with.

Still, he’s never had any particular drive to _nest_  like this, his own brand of care altogether more nebulous, even before the fire erased the concept as a possibility.

This is evidence of the balance, the urge to _create_  revealing a different kind of imperative.

If Peter’s mind is composed of second-generation matter now after dragging himself back to life, he must by definition have infinitesimally greater mass, a greater weight on the world. It could be that the toll paid is the unlooked-for gift of self knowledge. Lydia Martin might understand, or she might sneer in the face of his mathematically unsupported conclusions; he supposes he might owe her a debt for being his crucible, her own relentless rationality serving as conduit and price for his rebirth.

He knows that as he is now, he’ll be the one to take as much of the blood and carnage and pure, violent destruction on his shoulders as he can carry. His re-assembled parts revel in it, the chase, the _hunger_  an ever-present itch in the back of his mind, stranger and more charming on the second visit. He can be the bloodied claws and dripping fangs now, having sacrificed extraneous morality for revenge.

Derek, on the other hand, has always liked to build things, tactile and ephemeral both. Peter can recognise the value of it, even if a good deal of what he forms appears structurally unsound at first glance. He’d been wrong to assume that Derek is ignorant of the power inherent in love.

-

“How old are you?” Peter asks Stiles, sneaking up from behind him just for the satisfaction of watching him shiver. The hallway’s dark enough that Stiles will probably be having a bit of trouble seeing, stubbornly human as he is.

Stiles glares at him balefully before warbling “age ain’t nothing but a number,” with a straight face, failing utterly to answer his question. He must be well on his way to eighteen by now and Peter has every intention of looking it up, but he’d rather watch him squirm a bit, trying to identify the reason for Peter’s inquiry. They do have a dynamic to uphold, after all.

“A bit too old for treehouses, a bit too young to be so guarded,” Peter muses, watching Stiles turn a dull red.

“I knew we should have hung that ‘no undead relatives allowed’ sign,” Stiles says, moving as if to brush past him, headed out the front door. Peter reaches out and catches him, holding his wrist in an echo of the time he made his offer, marvelling at the growth in the bones. “Let go of me,” Stiles says, voice deeper than it’s ever been.

Peter smiles, uncurling his fingers one by one until they’re standing at an angle to each other, forever an unsolved equation. “Being stronger as a unit means acknowledging the weakness of component parts,” Peter says, watching for Stiles’ reaction.

“If you’re trying to tell me that you want me to take care of Derek, I will honestly and for real kill you so hard that you will actually stay dead,” Stiles hisses, heartbeat rising. Peter can smell them on each other more often than not these days, and now is no different.

“I was just giving you some advice,” Peter says mildly, pleased at his anger.

“It’s not your advice to give,” Stiles hisses, pushing past without brushing against him, tall and broad-shouldered.

It really isn’t, considering their history. Peter’s reaching for the exit point already, now that the ground has stopped shifting under their feet and his own urges are pushing him onwards, downwards.

It’s an opportunity for a second life less ordinary, maybe. Perhaps a third life, if one was being pedantic.

-

Chris pulls up at five in the morning, truck rumbling heavily down their deliberately cached rear driveway slowly enough to announce itself.

“Diplomatic of him,” Peter says, meeting Derek on the stairs.

“What, trespassing?” Derek snaps, raising an incredulous eyebrow. Peter smiles, gesturing for Derek to precede him out the door. Chris steps out, armed to the teeth and Derek stiffens, agitation prickling along the pack-sense and raising Peter’s hackles with a delicious shiver of anticipation.

“What do you want?” Derek forces out.

Peter takes in the scene, waning moonlight giving way to dawn, liminal daylight turning everything grey. Chris is alone, stark and bristling with purpose. It feels portentous, like standing at a crossroads.

“I have some business to take care of,” he snaps, some of the life coming back into his eyes. Peter knows that look, has felt the echo of it in himself, tearing the life from the living. It’s not quite bloodlust in Chris, but he’s a hunter born and a hunter trained and he’s as powerless to resist the urge as Peter is disinclined.

“If you’re looking for a farewell party you’ve come to the wrong fucking house,” Derek says, eyes reddening.

Chris smiles, tight and hard, looking past him.

“Would you like to come running?” he asks Peter, throwing old words back like arrows, “I hear it increases blood flow to the brain.”

Peter doesn’t bother to hide the fangs in his smile, the phantom taste of blood already on his tongue. “We may be going to hell, but at least we’re not standing still?” he challenges, hoping for a rise.

“Don’t bastardize the classics,” Chris mutters, showing his teeth.

Theirs will never be an easy peace.

-

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [Marie](http://marielikestodraw.tumblr.com/), without whom it would never have been finished, and whose fucking phenomenal art made me fall off my damn bed. 
> 
> Thanks also to [Rachel](http://eyeballs-for-sale.tumblr.com/), the best cheerleader I could have asked for. You guys rock.
> 
> I also owe a big thank you to [Chai](http://dirtydirtychai.tumblr.com/) for her excellent grammatical eye. She has also made an AMAZING PODFIC of it which you can find [HERE.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/555798)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [МЫ ЛАДИМ, ТАК КУДА УЖ ХУЖЕ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172592) by [Bast (Bastet_Seith)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bastet_Seith/pseuds/Bast)




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